


Impending Storms

by cosmicConundrum



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, College, Cthulhu Mythos, Eldritch Monsters, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Halloween, Homestuck - Freeform, Horror, M/M, Mystery, Oneshot, Requited Love, Sherlock - Freeform, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, black magic, but also not really a oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicConundrum/pseuds/cosmicConundrum
Summary: Alfred moves to London as a college student and soon encounters and befriends the elusive Arthur Kirkland. They travel the city, solving cases and resolving crime, until one day, when they encounter evidence of a bigger organization at work. Their investigation of that organization leads them to the discovery of an ancient cult, and even more ancient gods...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! This is my Halloween-themed USUK fic, even though it isn't as Halloweeny as it is creepy. Somewhat inspired by Sherlock, the Cthulhu Mythos, and Homestuck.
> 
> Near the end of the fic, the descriptions get kind of complicated, so if you're having trouble visualizing what's going on, I recommend clicking the links spread thoughout the fic (all the underlined words should link properly) to watch the Homestuck flash animations and panels that inspired/basically comprise the next scene. Some of the animations have sound, so you'll have to pause whatever music you're listening to. Warning for a bit of flashiness.
> 
> My suggested background music is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbGc6sOprBM). The extended version of the background music is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkPH4Y8Bugg), so you won't have to keep replaying the music.
> 
> Happy Halloween, and enjoy!

It all begins one ordinary afternoon.

The sky is surprisingly not as dreary as it usually is in the city of eternal rain. Instead, it peeks out from the few present clouds every once in awhilea while, as if to tease the poor citizens of London and remind them that they will never experience a fully sunny day so long as they continue to live where they do. London will otherwise forever remain dreary.

But that is simply the impression Alfred got of the city, ever since he moved there to study.

London is a beautiful city. Full of cultural sites, gothic architecture, stone-paved streets, and tiny cars, it was the perfect setting for any number of fictional and fantasy novels. Looking back, Alfred supposed that he didn’t really know what he should have expected, coming to the fabled city back as a student fresh into college. After all, it was an old city, one of untold myths and strange mysteries and unsolved historical connections.

Alfred, being the innocent, optimistic, and oblivious person he was, couldn’t possibly have known. He couldn’t possibly have known that the old city possessed much more than tourist attractions and tea shops. He couldn’t possibly have known about the older, ancient figures that resided in it.

 

* * *

 

Arthur is a very, very cool person, according to Alfred-- and Alfred doesn’t just say that just because of his maybe-possibly-biased feelings towards Arthur; it is a fact. Arthur is well known all around the community of politicians, police, and important people in general, as the smartest, strangest man that has ever walked the earth.

But Alfred knows Arthur, and Alfred knows that Arthur is none of those things people tend to stereotype him as. Arthur is, instead, an incredibly smart and kind friend who likes to call himself a detective.

There are days when Alfred sits in his signature chair by the window, feeling the softness of its scarlet cushions as he sinks into them, and looks through the window panes blurred by streaming water at the city below. London is indeed a beautiful place, he always thinks. And he is so fortunate to know it, and to know Arthur.

It is during one rainy afternoon unlike any other that Alfred meets Arthur. Alfred has just stepped out of the cab he hailed from the airport, in front of the new apartment building he will call home for the next few years. The kind landlady greets him, welcomes him to the city and to the country, and fixes him a nice warm cup of hot chocolate -- he says he doesn’t like tea -- before the conversation morphs into what sounds like regularly rehearsed gossip about the stranger side of the town.

“There’s old Mr. Brown who lives on the last room of the top floor,” she says as she giggles, much like a youthful young girl. “He’s very kind. Ah yes, very kind indeed. Although there is something a bit off about him that has always had me worried.”

Alfred pauses in sipping his sweet cup of cocoa, and looks at Mrs. Benson.

“How so?”

“Well, you see, he’s not a peculiar man in his ways at all, actually! He simply… how do I put it? He sometimes delves and rages about people he has known in the past, and who I suspect have hurt him. He screams names, sometimes, names I haven’t heard of anywhere but in the newspaper!”

Alfred raises one eyebrow at the exclamation. Something about this situation seems a bit strange.

Mrs. Benson finally notices Alfred’s confusion at the topic, shakes her head, and reaches over the table to grab a slightly rumpled newspaper sitting on the other side.

“Here,” she says, handing him the paper.

As Alfred reads it, his eyes gradually widen in horror and excitement. The modern day large-scale scandal of the city is the rise of abductions, commonly blamed on aliens, or a serial killer, or even a cult. Alfred suspects that the suspected perpetrators of the abductions were picked out by uninformed newspaper colonists, since none of the possibilities sound plausible. But there is a great deal of excitement over this new issue. Something Alfred can look forward to reading about. Something Alfred can perhaps help solve the mystery of!

He hasn’t always read those mystery novels as a child for nothing!

Just as Alfred is about to leave, thanking the old landlady for the time and the warm welcome, he steps out into the hall and nearly knocks over another person who appears to have been walking by.

“Sorry!” Alfred exclaims, looking over the stranger, trying to see if he needs any help.

It is the stranger’s features that capture his gaze.

The man is slightly shorter than Alfred, slim but lean, and stern-looking. He has pale skin, high cheekbones, massive eyebrows, and the greenest eyes Alfred has ever seen. _They are so incredibly green_ , Alfred can’t help but think as his mind becomes locked in a recurring chain of thoughts, _like emeralds, or maybe--_

“Apology accepted,” the man states stiffly, and then pushes past Alfred in a single motion, disappearing up the stairs.

Alfred merely gawks at the spot the man was just in, and wonders how he managed to move so fluidly, almost like he was a ghost.

In the silence, Alfred doesn’t notice Mrs. Benson sneaking up behind him until she taps him on the shoulder, scaring him into jumping and then landing flat on his bum.

“I see you’ve met Mr. Kirkland,” she says, smugly, as if she knows something he doesn’t.

Alfred doesn’t like that look.

 

* * *

 

Alfred doesn’t know why, but he is absolutely intrigued by this Kirkland person.

The man is more mysterious than a fox in the night, and twice as fast. He comes and goes without sound, seemingly always on a mission on his own. He always knows what’s going on, and appears to be several steps ahead of the public in predicting the outcome of current city scandals -- like that one time he announced to Mrs. Benson that he had figured out that the person who had stolen the famed jewel from the local museum was likely none other than the local shopkeeper.

He was proven right several days later.

Alfred watches Kirkland from a distance, because no matter how confident he tries to appear to be, he never seems to be able to penetrate the wall of space the man puts around himself. Greetings do not work on this mysterious stranger, oh no. Not even accidentally bumping into him in the hallway of the apartment works.

Alfred begins to run out of ideas.

One morning, he frantically runs down to the landlady’s room, and asks her how to get on Kirkland’s good side.

“I see,” she says as she gives Alfred a knowing look, “All I can tell you is that his trust must be gained through time.”

This cryptic riddle doesn’t make sense to Alfred, nor does it help him on his quest to be acquainted with the mysterious Kirkland. Or at least it doesn’t for a week. Then Alfred is nearly hit by a car after deciding to walk on the wrong side of the road -- in his defense, he hasn’t lived in London long enough to get used to walking on the left side yet -- and before he almost dies he is saved by none other than the mysterious stranger he so admires.

Alfred and Kirkland lay on the sidewalk, bodies pressed together, as they try to catch their breaths, and their minds try to catch up with what just happened.

“You saved me,” is all Alfred can say.

At that instant, the stranger extracts his slender limbs from around Alfred’s torso, and his gaze lingers elsewhere.

“I should go,” the man says, standing up and brushing off the mud that has covered his clothes.

He turns around to leave, but Alfred, too, stands up, and lays a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, I should properly thank you,” Alfred says.

Kirkland turns around, and Alfred’s gaze is swept up in green, green, _green._

“No problem. I don’t see why I can’t help protect my neighbor, even if he is a bit foolish sometimes,” Kirkland says.

Although Alfred is not a professional at reading the atmosphere, he senses that there is a teasing lilt in the man’s words.

“I’m Alfred,” Alfred states and offers a hand out to the man.

“Arthur,” Arthur Kirkland responds, and accepts the handshake.

 

* * *

 

The two young men get to know each other a lot better over the course of the next year. Arthur is always moving about, looking for new things to figure out, to occupy his forever-knowledge-hungry mind as time goes by. Alfred, on the other hand, has no idea what’s going on. He simply follows Arthur about when they have the time, and bothers him with endearing nicknames and silly questions.

“Hey, Artie, what are you doing?” Alfred asks one day, as Arthur leads him out of the police station, after they finish talking to the chief officer.

“Alfred, despite the fact that you clearly haven’t a clue how the world works, you should have been able to grasp what the officer and I were just discussing, and apply that basic knowledge along with the direction we are currently headed to figure out something,” Arthur snaps.

Alfred doesn’t wince even a little. He knows that Arthur is sharp with his mouth, but he also knows that Arthur is not mean at all, and merely uses his vulgarity to cover up for his loneliness.

Because that is what Arthur is: lonely.

Or at least that is how Arthur was. Now that Alfred has become one of his closest friends, he thinks he deserves the right to say that he has cured Arthur’s loneliness.

If he ever mentions Arthur’s lack of other friends, though, he gets lightly slapped in the face.

That same day, they interview a solitary young lady who seems to know more about the subject of the police’s concerns than she likes to admit. Actually, Arthur does the interviewing. Alfred merely watches, and occasionally stands by Arthur’s side as moral support. But mostly, he watches the interview from afar. He watches Arthur more than he watches the lady. Arthur is more mesmerizing than anything else in the room, anyway.

Alfred doesn’t understand why he sees Arthur this way.

_They’re friends, right?_

 

* * *

 

One night, after stumbling from the warm lights of a pub, they walk through the cobblestone streets lit by streetlamps for blocks until they reach the apartment building where they live. The whole time, Alfred laughs. He finds out that Arthur’s ramblings are even funnier when he’s drunk. In order to keep the man from falling flat on his face, Alfred slings his arm over his shoulder, and more or less carries him into the building.

Ironically, Mrs. Benson isn’t in the building to greet them as they enter. Or maybe she is. Maybe she chooses to hide behind her front door instead, as she realizes that she doesn’t want to ruin their moment. Feelings take too long to fester and require too little to be disturbed in their growth.

And so the two young men stagger up the stairs, Alfred supporting Arthur, before Alfred stops in front of Arthur’s room. When he realizes that he doesn’t have the keys, he is obligated to fish through the pockets of Arthur’s london fog coat before he finally finds them -- but not before Arthur’s fingers secure themselves around his wrist -- and suddenly, the two are close, very close, _too_ close, and Alfred can feel Arthur’s warm breathing on his face, can see his half-lidded green eyes, and Alfred is panicking, because surely this strange fluttering sensation in his stomach is normal...

Arthur slumps over on top of Alfred, unconscious.

Alfred doesn’t know whether he sighs in relief or disappointment.

In any case, he picks up his friend -- because that’s what they are: friends, nothing more -- unlocks the door, and gently, gently lays Arthur down on the bed. Arthur is sound asleep and snoring when Alfred finishes taking off his shoes and outer clothing, and although Arthur doesn’t hear it, Alfred wishes him sweet dreams.

 

* * *

 

Nowadays Arthur is always on some kind of case or another. He runs from place to place, dragging Alfred along with him, sometimes to the police station, sometimes to the victims’ homes, sometimes to the crime scene itself. Although Arthur isn’t technically supposed to be helping anyone, he does so anyway, and nobody seems to question it, certainly not Alfred.

After all, Alfred is too distracted admiring _Arthur_ to really care about the latest development in the solving of long-unsolved mysteries.

And yet, as oblivious as the teenager-not-quite-yet-a-young-man is, he, too, has already picked up on some of the details.

The murders that he found himself hearing about all the time when he first moved to London only kept occurring, and it seems that they are only increasing in quantity. All of those murdered continue to disappear, sometimes reappearing weeks later, mutilated beyond recognition.

While Arthur eagerly inspects the crime scenes for smaller, more subtle details, Alfred can’t always stomach the sight of the dead, and often clings to Arthur.

Although Arthur thinks of himself as a cold, cynical person, there is something about Alfred that causes him to act differently. When he sees the younger man cuddling up to his side, his face buried in Arthur’s shoulder, Arthur’s eyes and heart immediately soften. _The poor man is hardly more than an overgrown boy!_ And yet that innocence touches Arthur; he finds that Alfred is very dear to him, too dear to him for the other to be only a friend, or even a partner.

But before Arthur can get his thoughts to go any further, an astonishing discovery is made about the case.

As he stands there at the crime scene, he notices one small detail.

There, on the victim’s hand, is a symbol, branded into the skin by… something. None of the investigators, including Arthur, want to think too hard about it.

It turns out that all the murders are directly connected. Of course they are. On the left hand of every victim lies the same exact symbol, a pointed branched mess of something that doesn’t even coherently look like writing.

That is when Arthur and his fellow investigators begin the discussion.

After finding out that murders are occurring simultaneously, they conclude that there must be more than one person behind the killings. That it is a group effort, and evidence points to the possibility that the murderers aren’t just two partners, either. There are more people involved. In fact, a month later, they discover that the killings are likely the working of a cult.

London has few well-known cults, or at least few that actively kill.

 

* * *

 

Alfred walks up to Arthur one day, and finds the other man sitting on his cushioned chair, sipping tea and reading a book. Alfred is already so close to Arthur that the other does not mind when Alfred gently takes hold of his hands and tilts the book up to read the cover.

“Ah. Shakespeare.”

“Of course,” Arthur says, “When have you not known me to read Shakespeare’s works?”

Alfred doesn’t come up with a suitable answer.

Alfred takes a seat on the cushioned chair opposite of Arthur, and, lacking a book of his own to read, merely gazes at the blond. He admires Arthur’s subtle attractiveness -- _oh dear, he didn’t just think that did he?_ \-- from the way his thick eyebrows furrow, to the way his messy hair falls into his eyes.

Not too long into the staring, Arthur looks up, catching Alfred’s gaze, and Alfred, in turn, is immediately paralyzed by those eyes. _So green. Can such a vivid color even exist?_

Arthur raises an eyebrow.

Alfred looks away and blushes.

_Is one supposed to see their friend this way?_

 

* * *

 

Alfred lies in bed with his laptop resting on his stomach and a pillow behind his head as he plays his favorite video game. When he fails to kill the monster before it explodes, he cries in outrage, accidentally drops his laptop, and winces when it crashes to the floor.

At the same time, Arthur bursts through the doorway only in time to see Alfred sprawled across the floor, mourning the likely loss of his laptop. Green eyes roll as they watch the man cradle the poor device to his chest, only to find out that it is miraculously not dead.

“Alfred,” Arthur says.

Said person is too distracted planting sloppy and wet kisses across the screen of his precious device to pay attention.

Arthur kneels on the floor in front of him and rests his weight on his palms as he leans forward, carefully looking Alfred in the eye, and says, “Alfred,” in a slightly more harsh manner.

Only then does the idiot look up, and their gazes meet. Yet again, the moment is somehow stretched into one much longer than it actually is. But then Alfred yelps and jumps backwards like here’s something on Arthur’s face. Arthur raises an eyebrow at the younger man, as if to ask what he was afraid of, and does not get an answer.

He also notes that Alfred’s face seemed to redden quite frequently lately; perhaps he has a cold.

Alfred is shocked speechless at the feel of a cool palm and slender fingers resting on his forehead.

“A-Arthur,” Alfred gasps.

The elder removes his hand and shakes his head to get rid of the strange thoughts that had popped up upon contact.

The fleeting feel of an elegant hand touching Alfred evaporates into the air just as quickly as dry ice.

“Anyways, I came here to tell you about our next move in solving the mystery of the mass killings. We have to personally get involved. I’ve made a paramount discovery about the origins of the murderers,” Arthur says.

“What is it?”

“The symbols branded into the hands of the victims, as well as the killings themselves, are part of the coordinated efforts of an ancient underground cult. Although I can’t seem to figure out the significance of their name, we do know that they are dangerous and working towards something,” Arthur sighs and runs a hand through his already tousled hair.

Alfred squashes the urge to smooth Arthur’s hair.

“Anyway, we need information from these cult members, and analysis of their behavior shows that they will not reveal any information about their intentions no matter what. Therefore information about them can only be acquired through direct infiltration of their group. Furthermore, we have sufficient evidence to determine that they are gathering in a certain location tonight.”

There is a pause before Arthur continues.

“So we’re going undercover.”

 

* * *

 

“Us? Why did it have to be us?” Alfred groans for the nth time.

The night is dark, and the street is silent, but the alleys they squeeze through are even darker, and more silent, if that is possible. Alfred has been complaining since they set out earlier in the evening, and has yet to stop. Of course, one could only scold the immature boy so many times before being fed up, and that is exactly what happened to Arthur.

But Arthur also knows of something else that drives Alfred’s rambling: the poor man’s irrational fear of ghosts and the dark in general.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to bring him along after all.

The flowing cloaks and dark robes they wear prevent even the dimmest of lights from illuminating their faces, which Arthur supposes is for the best.

They slink along the shadowy alleyways, making twists and turns in a path so complex Arthur doubts they’ll even be able to find the place at all. But then they arrive at a single, wooden door. It’s in good condition, despite the fact that it looks like it can be hundreds of years old. On the other side of that door, faint noises resound.

“This is it,” Alfred whispers from behind Arthur.

“Yes.”

And so, with one strong hand, Arthur twists the doorknob and opens the door. When they enter, the blackness swallows them completely.

 

* * *

 

The cult members walking around in a synchronized circle sing a mysterious song, and despite Arthur’s literary genius, he can’t quite seem to come up with any other words to describe the tune. Perhaps enchanting. Otherworldly. But not in a pleasant way.

The key is almost minor, but very much so.

Arthur’s musical genius tells him that they are singing in a key with more notes than the standard twelve of contemporary western music. So the song, and likely the cult, have originated elsewhere. Yet, as much as he thinks, he cannot remember a culture that sings in so many distinct, different notes.

Flowing black robes and cloaks adorn the other cult members as well.

With their hoods drawn over their faces, everyone looks almost exactly the same, except for small differences in height and stature. Arthur would say that he and Alfred blend right in. He is surprised when he finds out they had gotten in so easily; one would expect it to be slightly harder to infiltrate a world class killing cult, after all.

Alfred stares ahead at Arthur’s cloaked back, and wonders if it would draw attention if he were to initiate a hug. He eventually dismisses the thought.

Suddenly, the singing stops.

The crowd of cult members organize themselves into a large circle with three rows, the singers in the inner row, and Alfred and Arthur somewhat standing in formation on the very outside.

Alfred peeks over the shoulder of a person in front of him and notices that there is a large, empty space on the ground in front of the frontmost row. _What could they be doing?_

Then, the people at the front pull up the sleeves of their right arms, and expose something clutched in their palms. Arthur and Alfred’s struggling to see the happenings more clearly earn them an eyeful of body parts -- various organs presumably from the victims -- in the hands of the cult members.

Alfred suddenly wants to throw up. But he doesn’t. He has to stay strong, for Arthur.

Those people relinquish the bloody messes in their hands and pile them up in the center of the empty space, and then step back in between the spaces of the people from the row behind them, and then those people, too, step up, reveal their own stolen organs, and line them neatly along the others.

Alfred and Arthur’s row is up.

They exchange a quick look of horror before they are forced along with the other members, and they each hesitantly tug up their sleeves, each pretending to clutch something in their palms.

For once, Alfred thanks the darkness concealing them.

When they near the pile on the floor, they discover something else: there is an intricate circle with smaller symbols carved into the stone floor, and the ‘offerings’ had been purposefully laid in the exact center of the circle.

Arthur and Alfred are able to return to their positions within the third circle without being questioned by the other cult members, and they barely suppress a sigh of relief each.

The chanting starts not too long afterward, the same song from before, only the key has shifted up one, and everyone is singing now, not just the inner circle of occultists. Alfred and Arthur only pretend to follow along. The words come faster. The singing speeds up until the words of the song are barely distinguishable anymore.

And then it stops.

Something that sounds a lot like an ultra low frequency noise passes through the room, and everyone is silent.

Both Alfred and Arthur do not dare to breathe.

They watch from their vantage point in between the bodies of the cult members in front of them, and stare at the pile of bloody organs for a long, long time. Nothing seems to change. But then, a single gory piece begins to move, sliding down the pile. Even in the dark of the room, even with their limited sight , there is no mistaking what happens next. The organs begin to melt together, to change, to morph into something truly horrendous.

Squishing and cracking noises are followed by the growth of tendrils of tissue, tentacles, mouths, and eyes on the mass. The red blood, too, darkens to a color somewhere between green, purple, and black.

At this point, Alfred is ready to pass out, but this desire is infinitely less powerful than the absolute fear paralyzing his very being. Fear like he never felt he would feel, _ever._

Finally, when the strange metamorphosis finishes, and the monster in the center of the wood-carved circle opens its mouths and shrieks. The sound is nothing like any other, all gross and haggard and -- Arthur doesn’t even want to begin to try to describe it -- generally pretty horrible, for lack of better words. Even the rest of the occultists seem a little disturbed. Some of them back up a few steps, away from the creature.

Arthur, too, stands at the corner of the ring of robed members, and wonders what the purpose of this whole ritual could be. Why would these people summon such a thing, if that is what they are doing? What would that accomplish, and why were they willing to go to such lengths as murder to do so?

As Arthur ponders and Alfred has a mental breakdown, the creature begins to shift around, pointing its many appendages and eyes at the various people in the circle.

Arthur continues staring at the thing, and gradually begins to realize that something is off. The creature turns around several times, but then stops, with most of its eyes facing Arthur. As Alfred watches in horror, it raises every single one of its twisted, mutated tentacles, and points them towards his friend, almost as if it's reaching out for him…

...and begins crawling towards Arthur.

“The Shog’loyb has chosen!” A voice rises out from the rest of the cult members, all seemingly directed towards Arthur and Arthur alone.

“Rise and accept your blessing,” One of the former singers commands, and it is at that point that something in Alfred snaps and he realizes that they are in danger.

His suspicions are confirmed when the group begins to crowd in on Arthur.

Arthur seems to realize this, too. Without further explanation, he grabs hold of Alfred’s wrist, like he had done so many times before in the past, and turns to sprint from the demonic summoning circle and the monster within.

“Do not run!” A chorus of voices screams, undertones of multiple other entities resounding throughout the stone chamber and hallway, accompanied by the silent shrieking of the creature that was not to be.

The pounding of his heart is all Alfred can hear as he keeps running, aside from his and Arthur’s ragged breathing. They sprint as fast as they can, and Alfred even stumbles once or twice as he runs, but he doesn’t dare slow down, because he doesn’t know what will happen to him or his friend if the occultists and the monster ever catch up. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t think he’ll ever want to know.

They don’t stop sprinting until they are out of the damp, dark corridor, back in a dark yet infinitely safer alleyway, and don’t stop walking until they look back behind themselves and are sure they aren’t being followed. That night, they don’t dare go back to their apartment, out of fear that the occultists are out there, somewhere, watching, waiting. Instead, they head to the central roads of London where even the night can’t silence the light of the people. They hide out in a densely populated bar for the rest of the night, and despite the fact that neither of them get a wink of sleep, they somehow both know that they wouldn’t have slept anyway if they were offered the chance.

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk about the incident for a few days.

Part of the reason for this is because of Alfred’s fear of the unknown, as certain people have put it so poetically. After the encounter, Alfred’s fear of ghosts and other monsters amplifies itself tenfold, and he refuses to even think about what had happened that one night. In order to cope with his fear, he begs Arthur to be with him at all times.

When Arthur accepts, partially out of guilt, his responsibility to be with Alfred at all times is extended to when they sleep as well.

And that is how Alfred and Arthur end up standing across from one another on opposites of a bed in a staredown.

“Did I ever actually agree to this?” Arthur wonders aloud as he contemplates the situation.

Alfred looks away bashfully and refuses to answer.

They climb in together, anyway.

That night, as Alfred drifts off to the peaceful embrace of unconscious sleep, a small, delirious part of his mind happily thinks about how lucky Alfred is to have met such a great friend as Arthur.

 

* * *

 

“Alfred?”

Said person looks up from the notebook he is scribbling notes down in, and is not too surprised to find none other than Arthur Kirkland, all fuzzy eyebrows and serious facial expression and everything.

Arthur exhales once before continuing.

“Remember that encounter we had about a week ago?”

Alfred can’t help but shudder at the memory. He does not want to remember. He never wants to remember again.

“I’ve figured out the next step we need to take. Or, actually, the next step I need to take,” Arthur continues, a stern look on his face that betrays the fact he is going to decide to do something really stupid all in the favor of pursuing his goal.

“And why is that?” Alfred asks.

“Because you’re scared, and I don’t want to force you to come with me when you’d clearly be elsewhere,” Arthur finishes and looks away.

Alfred frowns.

“But… I want to be with you!”

“Alfred, please.”

Alfred stops pleading and looks at Arthur, meets those green eyes, and once again is paralyzed by them.

“You don’t have to feel obligated to come with me. I can continue the mission on my own,” Arthur states, and although one could easily tell he is trying to appear cold and emotionless, he is hiding a deep pang of sadness behind that mask.

Alfred is silent.

“I know what the cult is trying to do,” Arthur continues, and Alfred only listens, for once, without jumping in with his own comments. “They are part of an order, an old order, that has branches all throughout the world. Unlike many other cults, this one is founded in ancient magic that has been active in the past.”

More silence.

The pattering of London rain is the only thing keeping Alfred aware and in the moment.

Arthur strides closer, and takes a seat on the opposite cushioned chair. He crosses his legs, turns his head, and looks out the window. When he continues talking, he does so in a low voice, barely a whisper, like what he is saying is either painful or too big of a secret to say any more loudly.

“When I was younger, I encountered a branch of the cult firsthand…”

 

* * *

 

Arthur, barely a grown boy, runs through the forest for his life.

If he had known those people would be there, in the forest, he would have listened to his fairies! But Arthur is a young and naive child, more curious than he should be for his own good. He supposes he should have listened to the fairies, especially since they were warning him.

Otherwise he wouldn’t be running through the forest for his life.

He also supposes he shouldn’t have taken the large tome that lay on the stone altar. Come to think of it, maybe that is why they are chasing him. Any person would be mad if their belongings were stolen!

Arthur continues running, stumbling over roots and occasionally tripping over larger stones. But he never slows down. He can’t. His fairies tell him that those people were bad, _bad_ bad, and if he is caught, he will never be okay again.

The night is cold and wet and Arthur is more scared than he has ever been in his life, but his fairies are by his side, and he has courage, because he knows the woods like the back of his hands, and once they can’t see him any longer he will be safe.

Finally, hours later, he is sure he is no longer being followed, and returns to his home, content with the thievery of his life.

It isn’t until many months later that he finds the dusty old book from a wooden chest high up in his attic, and remembers that night again. It isn’t until that day, many months later, that he decides to actually read the book, and it isn’t until then that he discovers the existence of black magic. He is only halfway through understanding the meaning of the mysterious symbols in the book when his fairies warn him. They say that the magic from the book is evil. That he should never touch it again.

And so little Arthur throws it back in the chest, locks it, and never thinks about it again.

 

* * *

 

“Well, I never thought about that book again, at least until last night. This morning, when I was looking through my closet, guess what I found?” Arthur pulls out a leather bound musty old book from behind his back.

Alfred gapes.

“No way.”

“Oh, I assure you, it’s the same book. It has the same symbols and everything, although I don’t quite remember ever bringing the book from my childhood home to this apartment,” Arthur says, and shrugs, “Either way, it’s a good thing we have it now. I know how to counter the occultists’ plan.”

Alfred doesn’t stop gaping, but he manages to squeeze in a quick question.

“So what is their final plan?”

Arthur chuckles and waves a hand at his book.

“You see, they’re trying to perform a ritual that will summon gods they worship. It’s a very complicated ritual that is thousands of years old. And Alfred, before you protest, I will also assure you that magic is real. We are not having that discussion now,” Arthur adds when he sees Alfred’s disbelieving stare.

“The ritual is composed of several parts, and the one they were practicing yesterday is only the first. They have to summon a messenger of the gods they worship, and that messenger will choose a member of the cult to be blessed. When the person has been chosen by the god-messenger, he or she will undergo a transformation to become the being to fulfill the ultimate prophecy in this tome. This same ultimate prophecy is what the entire cult is dedicated to fulfilling. Like I said, their ultimate goal is to summon the outer gods,” Arthur says, then adds, in a quieter tone, “I suppose the reason they have only successfully tried the ritual now is because of the special time and spatial alignment of celestial bodies required for the ritual to work. Otherwise they would have done so and succeeded centuries ago.”

Alfred continues gawking. What could he say? He had just learned that magic, black magic, was very much real and a thing and was threatening the very world around him.

Arthur notices Arthur’s look of utter horror, and attempts to calm the raging paranoia by continuing.

“Luckily, all the possible rituals they could perform are also listed in this book. That also means that any deterrents are written down as well.”

The younger blonde raises an eyebrow.

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning that anything they attempt, I can try to counter,” Arthur finishes, a smug look in his eyes.

Alfred gapes even harder if that is possible, considering the angle that his mouth is open at already.

“But… that means you’ll be practicing black magic!”

Arthur sighs and brings his gaze to the old tome in his hands. Something flickers across his face, but Alfred is neither quick nor sensitive enough to figure out what it is. What Arthur says next is quiet, so quiet that Alfred has to strain his ears to hear it.

“I will be doing it for the greater good. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted people to do? Isn’t that why you call yourself a hero?”

Alfred feels a strange pang of guilt at the quiet whisper. Perhaps his friend isn’t wrong about trying to counter the evil spells of a group of lunatics. Perhaps it really will help, despite the fact that Alfred himself hasn’t believed in magic at all until only a week ago. Of course, he knows Arthur is right, and he trusts him. Who else is smart enough to defeat the evil workings of an entire cult that is likely thousands of years old?

“Alright, Arthur,” Alfred concedes, hanging his head as he does so, “But it’ll be dangerous for you. I don’t want you to get hurt. Please don’t get hurt, Artie.”

Arthur frowns at the pet name -- really, his partner in crime is such a child -- but his gaze softens at that tone of concern. Despite the fact that Alfred is immature, oblivious, often rude, and loud, he is also a very sweet person. Arthur thinks back to days they shared together on cases, days they shared travelling the city, and even days when they just hung out in one of their rooms, talking about stuff.

To Alfred’s surprise, the older man’s face softens further.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right as rain,” Arthur says.

 

* * *

 

Alfred stands in the kitchen of Arthur’s apartment, though at this point the two have more or less began to live in each other’s rooms. They find themselves sleeping over at the other person’s residence more frequently than they would have liked, but neither want their system to change. Why would Alfred complain about being able to sleep, even if he did so on the couch, in the same room as Arthur, the only other person his thoughts ever wandered to?

But Alfred continues to stand in the kitchen, stirring a freshly brewed mug of coffee. When he looks over, he sees Arthur sitting at the table with his own cup of tea in his hands, in front of the same old tome flipped open to some random page. Arthur wrinkles his nose at the smell of coffee, and Alfred just rolls his eyes at his friend’s obvious lack of good taste. _Who even drank tea anyway? It was just leaf water!_

The morning is warm and pleasant despite being filled with silence.

Then all of that warmness and pleasantness goes down the drain when Arthur puts down his cup on his saucer with a loud clink, and begins talking.

“I know how to counter their magic.”

Alfred places his mug on the counter with a slightly louder thunk, then slides over to Arthur and peers down at the book.

Arthur points his finger at a random passage from the tome, written in some sort of strange nonsense language consisting of symbols and punctuation Alfred has never seen before and can never even begin to understand. But somehow Arthur knows what it says.

“The ritual the cultists performed the other night, as well as all other spells conducted in the future, can be reversed with constant counterspells. I haven’t translated enough of the grimoire yet to read the components of the counterspell, but I suspect that I’ll be successful soon,” Arthur muses as he stares down at the worn pages.

Alfred once again watches only Arthur. The man is so close; he can very well reach out and place a hand on his shoulder, or even better, under his chin, so that he will look up, and they’ll be close enough for Alfred to --

And no, _no_ , he is _not_ having these thoughts. He cannot possibly be having these thoughts.

“Anyways, you should get going. You’ll be late for your classes again,” Arthur scolds.

Alfred gulps at the memory of the last time he had been late for his classes because he had gotten too distracted talking with Arthur. All he had gotten was a lecture, not even a pleasant conversation!

Alfred is out the door with his belongings without another moment of hesitation.

 

* * *

 

The closed door blocks off all the natural light from the other rooms so that only a small crevice between the bottom of the door and the floor is aglow.

The rest of the room is accordingly dark, with the only other light source being a dim, old-fashioned candle’s flame. A man sits with his legs folded on the ground, his regular clothes replaced with the flowing dark fabric of his cloak. The ancient tome lays in front of him, flipped to the same page it has been flipped to for the last few days. Off to his side are the rest of the tools he uses for magic: a large crystal ball retrieved from an unknown but very generic antique shop somewhere off the streets of London, a roll of parchment with an old-fashioned fountain pen and ink, and more white candles.

Arthur skims the page with his finger, and, upon finding the passage he has reviewed so many times before, closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, for he knows that what he is about to do next will probably be very difficult, and require more mental willpower and concentration than he is used to expending. His thoughts fly to Alfred, but only briefly. He shoves those thoughts away because he knows he must concentrate. He knows that magic cast without a user’s greatest concentration can lead to disaster.

His eyes snap open.

Arthur reaches over and picks up the crystal ball with two hands, and isn’t too surprised to find that is is much heavier than it looks. With the crystal ball in his lap, he closes his eyes and takes another deep breath, before opening them and speaking.

“I must scry for the answer I seek.”

It’s a simple statement, but it’s bound to work; Arthur isn’t a stranger to the ways and wonders of magic, and he knows that commands work best.

He brings the ball closer to his face with two hands, and stares directly into the center of it.

The inverted candle flickers in the darkness of the room through the crystal.

“Can the outer gods be stopped?”

No answer. Not even a flickering remnant of an image.

Arthur sighs. Perhaps he needs to try a different question, one more direct. Or maybe one more vague. Sometimes asking vague questions worked better. The universe did not ever follow a simple line of logic.

“Are the outer gods evil?”

Arthur stares into the ball for a long, long time. The flickering of the candlelight in the background gives the darkness of the room a strange look and feel. He looks harder, deeper into the darkness, past the random sparks of light, and he sees shapes. Darker shapes. Darker moving shapes. They’re zooming past him, all around him. Flashes of beings of darkness and tentacles and teeth and eyes and limbs. The candle, it’s in front of him, and it’s growing brighter. He’s getting closer to the light, yes. But what about the darkness? What are the strange beings?

The light is in his face. The answer’s so close, he can sense it.

[Suddenly, a flash of words. _The answer!_ But it slips from his grasp, as does his mind.](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005539)

The candle goes out.

 

* * *

 

He slips into the fabled blackdeath trance of the woegothics, quaking all the while in the bloodeldritch throes of the broodfester tongues. The members of the brotherhood know and are not alarmed, as they chronicle the event in tomes bound in the tanned, writhing flesh of a tortured hellscholar, with runes stroked in the black tears bled from the corruption-weary eyes of fifty thousand very real occultists.

Although they are many miles away, they know what has happened. They have seeing bowls of their own, and they definitely know when another one has succumbed to the powers of the outer gods. But this one is different. This one is the ultimate. Bound to be possessed by the minds of the outer gods since the very beginning of the cult. He is the one. Arthur Kirkland is the chosen one, as the Shog’lyob so correctly decided at the closing of their last ritual.

They watch through their scrying bowls as the man, now encased in roiling tendrils of shadow, steps out of the room and breaks through the window as he ascends into the sky.

The occultists rejoice. This is because, as it is now painfully obvious to anyone with a vague understanding of the workings of black magic, Arthur has basically gone completely off the deep end in every way and fulfilled the transformation described in the prophecy.

He has gone grimdark.

It is only a matter of time before the final ritual begins.

 

* * *

 

Halfway across the city, in a small, obscured cafe, sits a close friend of a man just gone grimdark.

Alfred looks down at the textbook and notes he is supposed to be studying and sighs. His life is so boring. Bookwork is so boring. It is at times like these that he remembers all that he has that he should be thankful for, namely a certain friend he has known for quite a while now.

He looks out the window, and notes that unlike the regular dreary weather the city gets, the sky is clear and bright, with few clouds. Oh. This is new. Alfred looks out the window questioningly at the sky. It isn’t often for one to see a clear day here. He should probably be thankful for the nice weather. There will be plenty of opportunities to take advantage of it, as soon as he’s done with this and can return home.

As he gazes out the window at the sky bright with opportunities, his thoughts find their way to a certain friend yet again.

Arthur is such a good friend.

Alfred sighs at the thought of the grumpy green-eyed man with eyebrows in size second only to his vocabulary. The man that is brilliant in a way Alfred can’t describe. The person who stays with Alfred whenever he asks to, who cares for him like no one else does.

Alfred’s cheeks began to warm at the memories, but instead of trying to shrug the flush away, he only smiles more widely.

Oh, how he longed to go back, and spend the rest of the beautiful day with his friend, before the dreary stormclouds set in again.

Alfred realizes he has zoned out for a while, and regains his senses. He’s still looking out at the sky, admiring its brightness, thinking, deep in thought, when something catches his eye. The few clouds stealing the light from the ground are all concentrated towards one side of his field of vision. Upon looking a little harder, he realizes that there are more clouds off in that direction. And they seem to increase in dreariness the further away they are.

Alfred frowns. There’s a storm coming, it’s obvious, but what kind of storm cloud formed in that kind of pattern?

That’s when he notices the people getting up, frantic whispers as people pass by each other, chairs screeching as people get out of their seats and move to leave the cafe, people beginning to stick their heads out of their windows on buildings adjacent to gaze at the storm.

And that’s when Alfred knows something is wrong.

 

* * *

 

Amongst the frightened people frantically running away from the incoming black cloud is a group of robed cultists, not scared in the least.

In fact, they readily approach the area of everyone’s fears. Few people pay attention to them as they run, as they are more concerned about the strange storm than a small group dressed in unconventional clothing.

The descent of the prophetic seer into the darkness marks the heralding of a new part of their mission. The saying of the tome told that once this seer had been darkened, the gate would be opened, a door that would finally allow for the return of the great old ones, the outer gods. Since the beginning of the cult’s formation, that had been the dedicated mission of its members, and it is finally taking place. Some of them had waited for years, some centuries.

They climb the rickety stairs of an old, abandoned building, and gather upon the roof to heed the acts of their seer. Not too long from now, the door will open.

They readied their own tools for the continuation of the ritual.

 

* * *

 

Alfred runs. He runs like a madman in confusion. He bumps into the throngs of people running in the other direction, eager to get away from the dark mass that had formed, a strange storm Alfred is currently running towards.

The wind violently throws his hair around, but he keeps running, even when he crashes into someone and ends up falling over. He is almost trampled, but struggles against the pounding of shoes and feet and gets up, and keeps running. [Upon emerging onto one of the main streets, he turns left, and sees it.](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005592)

A huge mass of shadow, writhing and twisting like a tornado, but more slowly. The storm isn’t made up of actual storm clouds either; the mass consists of long tendrils that look suspiciously like tentacles. Green lightning flashes around the black cloud, lighting up small sections at a time. It is during those flashes Alfred confirms that yes, the storm is indeed made up of giant twisting tentacles. All around the darkest shadowy tendrils is a ring of darker clouds, the kind you would see right at the edge of a hurricane. Farther out, the sky lightens to the bright and clear day it was before this incident.

As Alfred stares, frozen, at the sight before him, a sudden and inexplicable connection forms in his mind.

The occultists.

The black magic.

This storm.

They’re all related somehow, he knows. Nothing like this could occur under any ordinary circumstances, and he isn’t quite ready to blame this supernatural occurrence on aliens. Maybe he’s wrong, but he has a gut feeling Arthur would know what is happening.

Without an ounce of further logical thought, Alfred dashes towards the descending black mass, eager to get closer.

He was never one to consider common sense, after all.

 

* * *

 

In no less than ten minutes, he has almost sprinted the entire several miles between the coffee shop he had come from and the impending storm. When he looks up, he sees the whole pillar of tendrils headed by something descending towards the roof of a building.

The sky is getting darker now. Smaller, actual storm clouds are drifting around the rotating black mass, and what seems to be rain is falling as well. Black rain. Like oil or ink. Falling from the storm clouds. It’s getting all over Alfred’s clothes. He doesn’t even want to begin thinking about how he’ll ever get those stains out now. He quite frankly doesn’t care. He needs to get to the bottom of this mysterious phenomenon this instant.

The ground is filled with small streams of the inky liquid.

Alfred hops over them as he continues running, before he eventually realizes that the descending storm is less than a block away.

He turns his head to the left and sees a stone building with a handy ladder set into the side of it.

 

* * *

 

Alfred is on the roof of the building, and only now can he clearly see what is going on.

The rotating black mass is literally coming down from the sky, towards the roof of a building five houses ahead. There continue to be giant back tendrils emerging from the bottom of the cloud, headed by… something.

Alfred narrows his gaze as he tries to identify the thing at the bottom of the cloud mass.

“Oh my god…” he whispers.

It’s a person.

More specifically, it’s _Arthur._

 

* * *

 

Upon doing the stupid, heroic thing, and jumping across the small spaces between the roofs of the adjacent buildings, Alfred reaches the building next to the one Arthur is slowly descending towards as he pulls down the black mass with him.

As always, he is unable to focus on anything except his friend.

[Even in this situation, surrounded by a large tornado-like storm of black tendrils, in the midst of a supernatural storm, Arthur is beautiful.](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005595)

His skin looks pale contrasted with the shadows around him, and his robe flows around him elegantly as wind blows past and inky rain continues to fall.

His skin almost looks gray in the weird lighting. His hair is ruffled by the storm. Under his robe, he is wearing something akin to a simple tunic. In his hands are twin wands, the lengths swirled with black and green.

Alfred watches in awe as his friend finally touches down upon the roof of the building. The mass above him seems to retreat into the storm clouds above, where it hovers, twisting and turning. But Arthur still isn’t back to normal. He’s encased in black flames that curl like tendrils around his skin, although he appears to be perfectly fine.

Arthur’s head is bowed, but when he looks up, Alfred’s gaze is immediately swept into Arthur’s.

His eyes are glowing, almost completely white.

“Arthur!” Alfred shouts from his position upon the adjacent building, “Arthur!”

But Arthur either doesn’t hear him or ignores him. Alfred is devastated by this. What had happened to his friend? Was he possessed or something?

Only then does Alfred notice the people standing around Arthur. The occultists.

Of course.

They’ve already carved a circle embellished with symbols around the spot Arthur is standing in. Arthur again either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Or, maybe in his state, he actively supports whatever these people are doing.

The people move to spots spread evenly around the giant carved circle, and begin to chant something.

Green light shines from the carving, as if it is lit from below. Alfred notices the stone roof within the circle start to become transparent. He gapes in shock. Instead of the inside of the building, the other side across the circle is… something else entirely. A roiling staticy gray void. His eyes begin to hurt the longer he stares at it. But he swears he can make out things in there.

Arthur continues to stand upon the transparent roof circle even as the things below him twist and come visibly closer to him. And that’s when it hits Alfred.

It’s a portal.

The occultists are trying to use Arthur, who has clearly been possessed, to open up some kind of portal to a dimension of weird tentacle monsters.

And as of the present, one of the things has already gotten too close to stop. It slides between the small opening of the portal, and twists around as it ascends into the sky, a trailing mass of tentacles and claws and hooved legs and other limbs behind it. Alfred watches it move about in horror, at the random mouths and eyes and appendages all over its body, if one can even call it such a thing.

When Alfred remembers Arthur, _oh Arthur_ , poor Arthur, he’s scared. He watches with baited breath and Arthur chants something else, and the portal below him expands to two, five, ten times its previous size. Now Alfred can clearly see into the gray void, where hundreds upon hundreds of the eldritch monsters are ascending through the opening and up into the sky.

They bring with them a misty blanket of swirling darkness so intense it blocks out all light, all light except the light given off by the glowing circumference of the portal.

The cult members continue chanting, as they, too, float at the edges of the opened circle.

Arthur remains in the middle, arms raised, eyes blank, as if he is not aware of what he is doing.

Something in Alfred snaps.

“Arthur!” He calls out, and summons up all of his courage to jump over the small gap between the roofs.

He runs to Arthur with all the determination he has ever had, runs to him because the freaking apocalypse is starting, and he’s afraid that Arthur himself will be corrupted by the twisted things if he remains so grimdark for any longer.

He runs to the edge of the circle and doesn’t even hesitate as he keeps running, and finds that there’s still some kind of invisible force barrier between his side of the portal and the gray void of static. He runs across the flat opening of the roof even as the monsters under him pass him on their way into corrupting the skies of London.

He runs straight into Arthur, and, lacking anything better to do, encases his friend in the only thing he has ever known to give: a hug.

Arthur freezes. Even the breeze whipping his short hair in front of his eyes and his rustling cloak stop. As the two continue to stand there, tendrils of dark flame curling around Arthur and now Alfred, not a single one dares to move.

“Arthur, I don’t know if you can hear me, or if you’re possessed, or if you have truly gone off the deep end, but please, please stop this,” Alfred says into Arthur’s shoulder, where he has tucked his face, “I don’t know what’s going on but I know it’s not good, and I know that you are the only one who has the power to stop it.”

Arthur remains silent.

Alfred backs away from the hug to find Arthur blankly staring at his face. His mouth is slightly agape, as if he’s suspended in a permanent state of disbelief. His eyes remain an eerie glowing white, unblinking, unmoving.

“Please,” Alfred adds, in a last attempt to bring his friend back.

Arthur blinks once, and blinks again. The glow from his eyes fade. His green pupils remain visible once more.

“A… Alfred?”

Suddenly, there’s a crack, and then an earsplitting boom. The force field circle between them and the gray void increases in brightness, and then with a single flash bright enough to blind, disappears. Now nothing is holding them up, and the open circle portal swallows them up.

Everyone standing on the circle portal, including the occultists, Arthur, and Alfred, tumble into the abyss.

 

* * *

 

Alfred has always wondered what it would feel like to be in another dimension. His early childhood had been spent watching science fiction and fantasy, and every movie, comic, and book had its own manner of dealing with the abstract concept. Some showed these alternate dimensions as parallel universes, completely congruent with Alfred’s own. Others depicted them in strange colors and alien planets, or in blank white emptiness.

[But that is not what Alfred sees as he falls.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3llprfkQPI&feature=youtu.be&t=1m52s)

The void is empty in a way, but also not. As he falls, he feels what could almost be described as wind whip past his face. But it’s not wind. It’s the same staticky nothingness that he sees all around him, flashes of white and black and gray and spots and dizzying darkness. He feels the tentacle monsters, too, they’re everywhere in this strange dimension, roaring fuzzily as he falls past them, in all shapes and sizes and forms too terrible to describe.

And it is in that moment that Alfred is truly scared.

Arthur, besides him, is also flailing around wildly in the static gray, still encompassed in swirling tendrils, but he shoots Alfred a single glance and shouts something just barely audible over the pounding crackling of the void.

They’re still falling, even faster now, and the weird bass-like static beat in the background only increases in tempo and frequency.

Something approaches them from underneath, and they fall right towards it, the biggest mass of dark tentacles and mouths and teeth and eyes so vast they can’t find an edge to it.

Alfred whips his head towards Arthur, who’s looking at him, who screams one last thing before somehow, instantly, their hands are joined. There’s an instant where they are frozen in time, and they just barely make close eye contact, before everything reverses and they change velocity and shoot upwards back in the direction they had come from.

The eldritch creatures close in around them, they’re on their heels but they’re also not, as static gray flies past their faces and they close in on the portal, still open, but crackling now, and very unstable.

Arthur flies, and drags Alfred with one hand, and they shoot out of the portal and stop, in midair, hovering above the stone roof with a giant portal hole in it, floating serenely as if what they had just seen was nothing.

The entities that had escaped are spreading an even darker cloud of black and static gray through the city, as buildings are encased in the weird fog and the sky continues to darken.

Arthur and Alfred continue to float, in midair, as the wind whips around their faces. They hold hands. They haven’t let go yet.

Arthur suddenly turns Alfred around so that they are facing each other directly and grabs his other hand. They stare into each other’s eyes for a long, long time, before finally, Arthur says something. He says a mere sentence of gibberish through the tongues of his grimdark throes, but somehow, it makes sense to Alfred.

Alfred nods and doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until he stops himself.

In that moment, Arthur almost seems to smile, his face softening and the corner of his lips tugging upwards. He gently floats Alfred to a safe place on the rooftop, away from the circle, before returning to his previous position, hovering in the air.

Alfred does not have time to smile back as Arthur’s dark fire encases him and expands outward as they reach for the edges of the vast corruptive cloud.

Arthur raises his arms and his wands and chants something, and an even more powerful wind begins to pick up.

What happens next defies Alfred completely. It’s as if everything that has happened in the last hour or so reverses itself, monsters flying back into the portal at warp speed, buildings undarkening, the sky brightening. The circular portal crackles and twitches, and Alfred knows it’s about to collapse at any moment. All the darkness and weird green and red and gray and black and other material is sucked into the portal.

Arthur is still floating, but seems to be exerting an extraordinary amount of energy to continue whatever spell he has started.

When the last stream of shadow, emerging from Arthur’s skin and own fire itself, swirls into the portal, the circle fizzes one last time before it, too, glows, flashes, and disappears, leaving only a blank stone roof where it had once been.

Alfred gazes up at Arthur, who still hovers in the air for one moment, once again as if frozen in time, before his cloak stops billowing, his eyes slide shut, and he falls.

Alfred barely catches him in time.

 

* * *

 

Alfred only carries Arthur like a damsel in distress or a princess bride because Arthur is completely and utterly gone. Either unconscious or dead, and Alfred isn’t sure which. He doesn’t dare to think about the possibility of the latter being real.

On the edge of a great stone building, he lowers Arthur onto the roof, and kneels besides Arthur’s limp form. The man’s skin has now returned to its pale but lively color, and his hair remains a straw blond, but his eyes are closed. Only his black cloak and the wands grasped loosely in his hands are all the evidence that remain of the supernatural occurrence from before.

Alfred, lacking anything else to do, gingerly cradles Arthur in his lap and arms. He holds him close for a long, long time, too long for him to keep track of the seconds and minutes and maybe even hours that go by.

“Arthur… come back,” he whispers again and again.

 

* * *

 

Alfred has somehow fallen asleep with his body laying limply besides Arthur’s own and his nose buried in Arthur’s hair. The bright sun warms both of their bodies that had gotten cold from the dark clouds.

Blue eyes flicker open, only to meet a stunning green more vibrant than the most lush forests on the island.

A gentle and warm breeze passes them then, ruffling Alfred’s hair and Arthur’s strewn cloak.

Alfred is the first one to speak, as always.

“You okay?” he asks, and clears his throat when he hears his voice crack.

Arthur merely nods.

“That was, as you would say, pretty wild,” Arthur says.

The sun is warm and rare and their privacy is fully guaranteed, so they do the only logical thing two so-called friends would do in their situation.

Neither Arthur nor Alfred realize their lips are touching before it happens, and neither Arthur nor Alfred make any move to pull away from the other’s warmth and life.

Perhaps kissing while lying on the stone roof of a tall building isn’t the most comfortable course of action. Still, they enjoy the kiss, and on account of the lack of air, eventually separate.

Though they have just seen ancient horrors terrible enough to blind the sane, and though they have come so close to being corrupted by the grimdarkness they only barely survived, and though they have close to nothing to be thankful for besides stopping the end, they smile.

 

* * *

 

The city has returned to normal now, but the remnants of a storm remain, lurking ominously in the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> I understand if you're confused. The plotline is pretty confusing. If you have questions, feel free to ask them!
> 
> Check out [my tumblr!](http://cosmicconundrum.tumblr.com)
> 
> [Oh my god thank you guys so much for reading. And thank especially at bethofawesome who just so happened to draw fanart for this fic. It's so amazing, seriously, please check it out, I'm on the verge of tears; ,,](http://bethofawesome.tumblr.com/post/153392212349/fanart-for-cosmicconundrums-amazing-usuk-fic)
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://cosmicconundrum.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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